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Saul Marquez:
Hey, everybody! Saul Marquez with the Outcomes Rocket and it’s such a pleasure to have you with us again. We are here at the ViVE event in Nashville, Tennessee, and I’ve got two amazing guests. I want to introduce them to you. First, I want to introduce Santosh Mohan. He is the vice president of Digital Innovation at the Moffitt Cancer Center, leading the charge to wholly reimagine how we tackle a cancer center, pairing cutting-edge technology with expert. Santosh, welcome.
Santosh Mohan:
Thank you, Saul.
Saul Marquez:
And we also have Jennifer Goldsack with us. How you doing Jennifer?
Jennifer Goldsacks:
I’m really well, thanks, Saul. How are you?
Saul Marquez:
I’m fantastic. Fantastic. She is the CEO of Digital Medicine Society, also known as DiMe, a 501C3 non-profit organization dedicated to advancing digital medicine to optimize human health. We’re here at the event, and Santosh and Jennifer actually had an incredible panel, and we’re going to talk about why they did this panel, what they’re after. But before we do that, I want to get a little intro for you guys. What is it that inspires your work in healthcare?
Jennifer Goldsacks:
At DiMe, my work in healthcare is solely focused on innovation, and when we think about that, we don’t think about innovation for innovation sake, and we don’t think about digital for digital sake. We think about using some of these new and innovative tools in the toolbox, all of the different ways that we can fundamentally reimagine how we care for patients in the digital era. What motivates us is that there are pressing and persistent challenges, whether they’re around access, whether they’re around equity, whether it’s around affordability. We know that there are still some conditions, including some types of cancers that we still can’t cure, and that’s what gets us out of bed every day. How can we harness the full promise of digital innovation to improve the lives of the people that our industry exists to care for?
Saul Marquez:
Brilliant. It’s great work, Jennifer.
Jennifer Goldsacks:
It really is, and we have a great team. And delighted to be here with Santosh today because the DiMe-Moffitt partnership is now the best part of a year old. And as you said, we did have a big panel yesterday, we had a big milestone moment. It’s just the beginning of a huge amount of work that we need to do. But excited to be in it with you, Santosh, and with our colleagues at Moffitt.
Saul Marquez:
Love it. Santosh, talk to us about you. What inspires your work in healthcare?
Santosh Mohan:
First, thanks for having me. Of course, what inspires my work is really challenging status quo that we have, especially in cancer. Cancer is my every day. It’s a terrible, ugly disease, and at Moffitt, we come to we come face to face with it every day, and we also see the courage of our patients fighting it. That inspires us to bring hope to every patient we serve, giving them not just more years in their life, but also putting more life into their years and delivering great outcomes for them, which is four times the national average, actually.
Saul Marquez:
Amazing. A beautiful mission, and you guys are hyper-focused on this. And folks, that’s what we’re going to talk about today, it’s cancer, and what are we doing to solve it? So, guys, you had a beautiful panel. Why don’t you share with us what the panel was about for the folks that are listening to this that weren’t able to attend?
Jennifer Goldsacks:
So I think the most important thing is that Santosh and I were delighted to be joined by our colleagues at the Federal Government, so Stephen Konya from ONC and Catherine Young from the White House. And the reason that having DiMe and Moffitt and our colleagues from ONC and the White House is so important is, Saul, because we were announcing a public-private partnership, Cancer X, that is now officially one day old. And this initiative was answering the call of the White House, and it’s the mechanism by which we are going to bring innovation to bear in pursuit of the very ambitious, but ultimately we think must achieve goals of the Cancer Moonshot. So the goal here is to reduce the number of deaths from cancer by 50%. We believe strongly that you cannot do it unless you harness the full power of innovation, and that doesn’t mean just tools and widgets, that means every innovator in the community. That means focusing the investors, the inventors, the passionate scientists and technologists, the clinicians who really want to be driving towards a better future, a reimagined future for people with cancer. Santosh, do you want to talk a little bit about the background?
Santosh Mohan:
Yeah, I think the as we think about how do we wholly reimagine cancer care, how do we pair expert clinical care with cutting-edge technology, I think it’s becoming very clear that oncology in many ways is lagging behind other therapeutic areas in digital innovation. On one hand, we have a lot of breakthroughs that leverage technology. We have digital radiology, digital pathology, patient-reported outcomes, next-gen sequencing, precision oncology that is fuelled by complex data, all these are hallmarks of our field, and yet this is not the standard of care for everyone. So there’s a lot of work we need to do to expand access and to reduce disparities. On the other hand, we also see how digital solutions that work very well in other parts of healthcare don’t translate so easily to oncology because the treatment is highly specialized, the workflows are highly variable, interventions with multiple providers over long periods of time, right? This complexity doesn’t lend itself to, so it doesn’t lend itself so easily to embrace digital solutions that are somewhat, have made a lot of strides in other parts of healthcare. So there’s a lot of work that we need to do there. And so for these reasons and more, it’s important to articulate what the problems are and what types of challenges are best suited for digital solutions to be able to address them and do so as a community of innovators. And so we’re acting with a lot of urgency. And urgency is important because this has to stop and we have to reduce burden of cancer for all people. And as Jen said, it’s great to put out this call to action for everyone to join us in this mission.
Saul Marquez:
There’s something inspiring about having these moonshots. When somebody says, hey, we’re going to make it better by ten, it doesn’t really move the spirit. While it makes a difference, it doesn’t move the spirit, and the work that you guys are doing is moving my spirit. And I can tell you that seeing the people here at ViVE, it’s moving their spirit. And so talk to us a little bit about what some of the actionables are with the program that you guys are.
Jennifer Goldsacks:
And Saul, I just want to react to what you said there because it’s so important. And actually yesterday during the panel, Stephen Konya, who was moderating and he’s fantastic, called on everyone who’s been affected by cancer, either themselves as a patient or a loved one, every single person. We looked out, it was a sort of packed audience, and every single person,
Saul Marquez:
Everybody raised their hand.
Jennifer Goldsacks:
Every single person, and I think this is why it has to be a moonshot.
Saul Marquez:
Yes.
Jennifer Goldsacks:
This is why incremental change, this is why nibbling around the edges is simply not enough. And so to answer your question, why are we so bullish about this? Why do we feel so confident that innovation can come through and really power progress towards these goals, as Santosh said, with a sense of urgency? So the way we’ve structured Cancer X, first and foremost, to be as effective as possible, but second, to create as many opportunities for folks to come and get involved. As, so Cancer X is a public-private partnership, so we welcome anyone from across industry who really shares our goals of harnessing the power of innovation in order to achieve the goals of the moonshot. And then within this community, there’s going to be three branches of, the first will be pre-competitive evidence generation. In some cases, as Santosh said, in oncology, we are lagging behind a little bit, especially vis-a-vis digital innovation. In some cases, it’s because we haven’t actually established what the correct or what the optimized methodologies are. And this a very complex data environment where we want to bring analytic capabilities and other capabilities to bear, but we actually have to do the work first to define what good looks like to align the incentives, so on and so forth. We actually launched the first project yesterday as well, and I think that this is important. It’s focused on improving equity and reducing financial toxicity. And I want to make sure that we come back to that because it’s important, just an example of that kind of work. Second, we’re going to have an accelerator program, so we’ll have annual cohorts where we’re really supporting those young, ambitious organizations and making sure they come to fruition and maturity well supported and capable of implementing these new best practices. And then finally, we’re going to have a series of demonstration projects, and not if but when we do this, right? This is a powerful vehicle, it serves almost like a flywheel. To define what good looks like, we support new organizations coming through to deliver against that vision, and then we create opportunities through the demonstration projects for us to show, not just tell, that this is a better way of caring for people with cancer, a better way for developing new therapies for people with cancer. As soon as we demonstrate that there’s no reason for those improvements not to go to scale and to achieve the goals of the moonshot.
Saul Marquez:
A quick question for you, and then Santosh, I think you wanted to comment on it as well. So the demonstration project, are these, is this, are these implementations pilots?
Jennifer Goldsacks:
Absolutely. Implementations, people feel differently these days about the use of the word pilot. So we’ll probably keep that one out of there.
Saul Marquez:
Implementation.
Jennifer Goldsacks:
Exactly, the scale is to be determined. And I think what’s really important and we’re going to keep emphasizing through the course of our conversation that folks should come and join us. But what the demonstration projects are, where they’re focused, where they’re applied, is going to be determined not just by Santosh, myself, and our government colleagues, but by the whole community who come to the table as part of Cancer X.
Saul Marquez:
Fantastic. I love the program. Santosh, you were going to comment on it.
Santosh Mohan:
This is really a call to action for people listening to join us. And speaking of, we’re going to announce our accelerator plans in the fall.
Saul Marquez:
Wow, that’s exciting.
Santosh Mohan:
Yeah, and there’s much work to be done between now and then.
Saul Marquez:
And so for everybody listening, this is an opportunity for you to think about how you could get engaged. If you have a company today that is aligned toward achieving this Cancer X, you better save this podcast and we’re going to do another one when it goes live, by the way. So when your accelerator goes live, we’re going to definitely let everybody know, but keep your eyes open for opportunities to participate in the accelerator and beyond because we need your help. Like, this is a collaborative effort where we gotta put all hands on deck to take care of this problem. Look, guys, we talk about moonshots. When Kennedy said we’re going to the moon, we made it to the moon. And so moonshots are realistic, they’re a stretch, but they’re realistic, and it’s exciting to be here talking to Jennifer and Santosh, it’s real and we’re making history here. Guys, what do you want to leave the listeners with today to consider and where can they follow you and the work that you’re doing with this project?
Santosh Mohan:
Yeah, let’s talk about an important topic that came up earlier, financial toxicity, it’s our first project. Cancer is supremely demanding in every possible way, emotionally, mentally, physically, financially, and operationally, it is also a complicated nightmare to navigate. But the financial piece is important, and we’d like to talk a little bit more about it and why it’s important. But just to drive the point, a patient with cancer, the likelihood of a patient with cancer experiencing a financial adverse event is 71% more than a patient without cancer. So that is why the work that we’re going to do, in the first project, is so important.
Saul Marquez:
Wow.
Jennifer Goldsacks:
Yeah, and I think that.
Saul Marquez:
71%.
Jennifer Goldsacks:
71%.
Saul Marquez:
That’s insane.
Jennifer Goldsacks:
And 2.5 times more likely to declare bankruptcy. So you imagine you win your battle with cancer and then you’re fighting for your house, you’re fighting for your home, you’re fighting for your family and your future. It’s absolutely unacceptable, and I think this is exactly the call to action. This work is already underway. We aren’t just admiring the problem, we aren’t planning for things ahead, we are already underway. So there are 21 organizations that have already put up their hand and said, yes, we want to be part of this work, this project, to improve equity, reduce financial toxicity. We’ve taken a strong position at Cancer X that nothing matters unless we get the equity piece right first out of the gates. Any innovation that comes out of this has to work just as well for everyone and it has to reduce the burden of financial toxicity, so it was absolutely non-negotiable that this is where we started. So those 21 organizations are already at the table, that work is beginning immediately. And for anyone listening who feels strongly about the mission, anyone who has skills to bear, anyone whose organization aligns with the mission, join us, there is a lot of work to do. We’re going to be developing the plan for the accelerator over the coming months. Come help us build that plan, participate in that, help us scope those demonstrations. And we’re really excited to be taking a big tent approach and look forward to welcoming many folks listening in.
Santosh Mohan:
Yeah, please sign up. We are at CancerX.Health.
Saul Marquez:
Amazing, CancerX.Health. Those statistics are staggering, and honestly, they make me really sad. They make me really sad to know that so many people are dealing with this and the work that you guys are is going to make a huge difference. And everybody listening to this, you can also make a difference. Santosh, what was that link again?
Santosh Mohan:
CancerX.Health.
Saul Marquez:
CancerX.Health, we’re going to make a difference here, folks. We’re going to leave a link in the show notes. Thank you both so much for the work you do. It’s making a difference.
Santosh Mohan:
Thank you.
Jennifer Goldsacks:
Thank you. Pleasure to be here today.
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